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NEW Toronto Judge orders pro-Palestinian encampment at U of T to leave by 6 pm Wednesday. Injunction gives police authority to remove and arrest.
Pro Hamas in the west - and their adventures
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NEW Toronto Judge orders pro-Palestinian encampment at U of T to leave by 6 pm Wednesday. Injunction gives police authority to remove and arrest.
Guns & bombs have not silenced resistance so why will injunctions?x.com
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NEW Toronto Judge orders pro-Palestinian encampment at U of T to leave by 6 pm Wednesday. Injunction gives police authority to remove and arrest.
A JEWISH VOICE FROM B'TSELEM SPEAKS OUT
Israeli โHuman-Rightsโ Group BโTselem Admits Holocaust-Denier in Ranks
Israeli โHuman-Rightsโ Group BโTselem Admits Holocaust-Denier in Ranks (VIDEO) - Algemeiner.com
Because the little fuckers will be collected by the cops and charged with contempt of court and placed on bail conditions not to return. And if they flout those conditions, they will just be kept in jail.
And get criminal records that completely block any career plans they might have.
Those good enough reasons?
You're the one that posted the picture, Geno.
I'm fixated on exposing how all of your pics are fakes and you constantly lie. Nothing you post can be trusted.
Here we have evidence that your claims of genocide being Israeli policy is total BS. Claims that killing Pali children is hate speech.
Do you have a follow up story about how the soldier was charged with disobeying direct orders. As usual since you have no back up to your lies you attack the messenger and then divert with more BS on a different topic, Geno.
Proof?
Unverified numbers of which Hamas or Hamas agencies provide. The UN has already stated Hamas' numbers are widely inflated.
The mother of an 11-year-old Jewish boy brutally assaulted at Belsize Park Tube station has said her 'terrified' family is now considering fleeing Britain following the shocking attack.
The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that her son is now 'struggling to sleep' and that he is 'deeply shaken' after being beaten up with his school friends in an incident currently being investigated by police as a hate crime.
Speaking to MailOnline she said: 'There's a lot of support being given by the British Transport Police and the school but my son is very shaken and he's struggling to sleep.
'He keeps asking "why me, why us?" We're British, like everyone else is British.
'And we love this country, and we participate and we contribute but now we're being singled out in exactly the same way as Jews were singled out in 1936 in Berlin.
'And for the first time in my life I am terrified of using the tube. What's going on?'
On Monday evening a group of around 8 year 7 schoolchildren from Hasmonean High School for Boys were physically attacked on the platform of Belsize Park tube station by a gang of slightly older, currently unidentified children.
As the Jewish boys left school they were followed to the station by the assailants who were yelling racial obscenities at the group. This is not the first time they have harassed the Jewish school boys.
Once they reached the tube station the attackers ran in front of the children and tried to push one of the Jewish schoolboys onto the train track before giving up and throwing his skullcap onto the tracjs.
They then charged at another child and kicked him in the knees causing him to collapse.
Finally they elbowed a third child in the face causing his head to smash against the wall - dislodging his tooth.
As they did this the attackers allegedly yelled: 'Get out of this city, Jew'.
Following this violent incident, the distressed mother now fears she may need to escape Britain which she worries may now be unsafe for Jews.
She said: 'It's a serious consideration to leave the country. It's an enormous fear. Will we have to and if so, where are we supposed to go?
'We're from Britain, but what can we do? That being said, the police are being amazing and are taking it all very seriously.'
Students from Hasmonean High School are being encouraged by their school not to wear their school uniforms or any Jewish symbols in public to mitigate the risk of possible anti-semitic violence.
Terrified Jewish mother claims she is contemplating LEAVING Britain after her son was assaulted | Daily Mail Online
The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that her son is now 'struggling to sleep' and that he is 'deeply shaken' after being beaten up with his school friends in an incident currently being investigated by police as a hate crime.
Speaking to MailOnline she said: 'There's a lot of support being given by the British Transport Police and the school but my son is very shaken and he's struggling to sleep.
'He keeps asking "why me, why us?" We're British, like everyone else is British.
'And we love this country, and we participate and we contribute but now we're being singled out in exactly the same way as Jews were singled out in 1936 in Berlin.
'And for the first time in my life I am terrified of using the tube. What's going on?'
On Monday evening a group of around 8 year 7 schoolchildren from Hasmonean High School for Boys were physically attacked on the platform of Belsize Park tube station by a gang of slightly older, currently unidentified children.
As the Jewish boys left school they were followed to the station by the assailants who were yelling racial obscenities at the group. This is not the first time they have harassed the Jewish school boys.
Once they reached the tube station the attackers ran in front of the children and tried to push one of the Jewish schoolboys onto the train track before giving up and throwing his skullcap onto the tracjs.
They then charged at another child and kicked him in the knees causing him to collapse.
Finally they elbowed a third child in the face causing his head to smash against the wall - dislodging his tooth.
As they did this the attackers allegedly yelled: 'Get out of this city, Jew'.
Following this violent incident, the distressed mother now fears she may need to escape Britain which she worries may now be unsafe for Jews.
She said: 'It's a serious consideration to leave the country. It's an enormous fear. Will we have to and if so, where are we supposed to go?
'We're from Britain, but what can we do? That being said, the police are being amazing and are taking it all very seriously.'
Students from Hasmonean High School are being encouraged by their school not to wear their school uniforms or any Jewish symbols in public to mitigate the risk of possible anti-semitic violence.
Terrified Jewish mother claims she is contemplating LEAVING Britain after her son was assaulted | Daily Mail Online
i do hope they resist, they need a nice whooping...The reported numbers are around 40,000 dead, 16,000 of which are children.
The real numbers will be much higher, Shazi, since the hospitals where bodies are counted are destroyed and 20-50,000 thousand more are 'missing' or buried in rubble.
You have no reason to believe the numbers are lower, and even if you did, its still genocide you're backing.
You've never proven any photo or video I've posted is fake, Shazi.
You repeatedly make these accusations and not once have been able to back them up.
Why would I have a story about that IDF soldier being charged for disobeying orders when he was clearly following IDF orders and protocols.
shack counter:
31 accusations of lying, 45 intentional misquotes (straw man arguments) - 0 proof
Those are Hamas' numbers. They have no credibility in this regard since their goal is to have as many dead civilians as possible to foment outrage against Israel. Of course they're going to inflate the numbers.
I have very good reason to do so since the UN reported, a couple of months ago, that the numbers were being overstated.
How the UN Got Away With Wildly Inflating the Casualty Numbers in Gazaโand the Media Bought It (fdd.org)
reported that more than 9,500 women and 14,500 children had been killed so far in Gaza. The office had been reporting similar figures for nearly two months. Yet on May 8, the reported numbers fell to fewer than 5,000 women and 8,000 childrenโa reduction of more than 11,000 fatalities over all.
The U.N. did not call attention to the change, which was buried in the fine print of one of its numerous updates on Gaza. But a handful of journalists noticed. The first wave of headlines put the U.N. on the defensive: โUnited Nations halves estimate of women and children killed in Gazaโ, โUN revises Gaza death toll,โ and more along those lines.
ELBIT TROUBLES BREWING AT GILLER
Giller Prize juror warns award in peril over sponsor Scotiabank subsidiaryโs ties to Israeli weapons company
BRAD WHEELER
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A protester films herself as she interrupts the Scotiabank Giller Prize in Toronto, on Nov. 13, 2023. That Giller officials have not publicly addressed the title sponsorship of the $100,000 prize apart from an initial response the day after the protests is problematic, according to juror Dinaw Mengestu.CHRIS YOUNG/THE CANADIAN PRESS
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With the Scotiabank Giller Prize board of directors set to meet Wednesday afternoon, a jury member for this yearโs prize believes the prestigious literary award is in peril over its corporate bank affiliation.
Ethiopian-American novelist Dinaw Mengestu told The Globe and Mail there is strong opposition within the Canadian literary community toward the countryโs richest award for fiction because of the investment of a Scotiabank subsidiary in Israel-based defence company Elbit Systems Ltd.
โI think the damage to the reputation that is happening now is already going to be difficult to recover from, and it is growing week by week,โ Mr. Mengestu said.
The annual Giller Prize for Canadian novels and short stories was created in 1994 by Montreal businessman Jack Rabinovitch. Scotiabank has been the Giller Prizeโs corporate title sponsor since 2005.
Filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show that Scotiabank subsidiary 1832 Asset Management had a 2.5-per-cent stake in Elbit at the end of March, down from 4.2 per cent at the end of 2023. Scotiabank declined to comment for this story.
On Nov. 13, 2023, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, anti-Israel protesters disrupted the televised Giller ceremony by mounting the stage while holding signs reading โScotiabank funds genocide.โ Master of ceremonies Rick Mercer attempted to grab one of the signs and some audience members booed. Others, though, walked out as the protesters were escorted from the room and later arrested.
Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Giller Prize, issued a statement the next day saying the protesters showed โdisrespect to Canadian authors and their literary achievements that were made throughout the year.โ
That Giller officials have not publicly addressed the title sponsorship of the $100,000 prize since then is problematic, according to Mr. Mengestu. He is the director of the Center for Ethics and Writing at Bard College in upstate New York and vice-president of PEN America, which champions the freedom to write.
โSilence becomes an invitation for more forceful response from people,โ he said. โWriters will come under pressure, and the prize should not let writers be in that difficult position.โ
Ms. Rabinovitch, daughter of the late Mr. Rabinovitch, issued a statement to The Globe on Tuesday.
โWe have been working hard for some time now on a solution that will support the foundation, the prize and all authors, which will be shared publicly shortly,โ the statement read. It went on to say that the Giller Prize would โprovide any update that we haveโ after a Giller board meeting on Wednesday, adding, โwe ask that people not construe our silence for endorsement of the status quo. Systems take time to dismantle.โ
After last fallโs disrupted gala, Canadian authors launched an online letter in support of the protesters. Among the more than 2,000 signees are Sarah Bernstein, who accepted the 2023 Giller Prize for her novel Study for Obedience, and Erum Shazia Hasan, longlisted for her debut novel We Meant Well.
Both authors withdrew from recent online Giller Book Club events. They later participated in an online book club organized by No Arms in the Arts, a Toronto-based campaign targeting Scotiabank-sponsored arts programs. Ms. Bernstein addressed the issue of arts funding, and the ways writers are paid, โand the ways we are necessarily enmeshed in these systems that we donโt necessarily ethically want to be involved with.โ
The Montreal-born, Scotland-based author said that while it was a โdifficult decisionโ to pull out of her Giller Book Club event, she was told that questions from the audience in reference to Palestinians or related protests โmight be censored.โ
Other signatories to the letter in support of protesters at the Giller Prize ceremony include past winners Omar El Akkad, David Bergen and Sean Michaels, and former jury members including Casey Plett and Waubgeshig Rice.
Mr. Mengestu believes the Giller Prizeโs standing is tied to its relationship with the authors. โIf you begin to lose the trust and support of the writers who make these prizes viable, and the writers begin to feel like the association with the prize is either against their own values or damaging to their reputation or what they believe is the fundamental role of literature, the legitimacy of the prize quickly begins to come under pressure,โ he said.
As a member of this yearโs five-person jury panel, Mr. Mengestu receives $10,000. He says the Giller Prize can and needs to exist without Scotiabank.
โIโm not Canadian. Iโll never get this prize, and Iโll probably never have any affiliation with it after this year. My engagement with the Giller Prize is because Iโm a writer and I feel deeply about what these awards can do for our culture.โ
Why would anyone care what some Shazi says about what is legit or not?
Those numbers are used by Israel, the UN and the world.
They are the best we've got until Israel allows the press and investigators in.
No, Shazi, we went over this. The numbers are the same, they just separated the dead brought to hospitals and counted there from other dead.
Those numbers are still very conservative, with tens of thousands missing and buried in rubble.
COURAGEOUS PEOPLE
JULY 2, 2024Service in Dissent: Joint Statement of U.S. Government Officials Who Have Resigned Over U.S. Policy Towards Gaza, Palestine, and Israel
BY COUNTERPUNCH NEWS SERVICE
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US-made ammo used in Gaza.
We are former U.S. Government Officials who resigned from our respective positions over the last nine months due to our grave concerns with current U.S. policy towards the crisis in Gaza, and U.S. policies and practices towards Palestine and Israel more broadly. We are subject matter experts representing the interagency, and are a multifaith and multiethnic community of professionals and patriots dedicated to the service of the United States of America, its people, and its values. Whether in the civil service, foreign service, armed forces, or as political appointees, each of us has sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as our nation celebrates its Independence Day, each of us are reminded that we resigned from government not to terminate that oath but to continue to abide by it; not to end our commitment to service, but to extend it.
Alone, we each made the somber and difficult decision to resign based on the individual circumstances we encountered at different times during these past nine months as we performed our specific jobs. But today we stand united in a shared belief that it is our collective responsibility to speak up.
The Administrationโs policy in Gaza is a failure and a threat to U.S. national security. Americaโs diplomatic cover for, and continuous flow of arms to, Israel has ensured our undeniable complicity in the killings and forced starvation of a besieged Palestinian population in Gaza. This is not only morally reprehensible and in clear violation of international humanitarian law and U.S. laws, but it has also put a target on Americaโs back. This intransigent policy risks U.S. national security and the lives of our service members and diplomats as has already been made evident with the killing of three U.S. service members in Jordan in January and the evacuations of diplomatic facilities in the Middle East, and also poses a security risk for American citizens at home and abroad. Despite this, the Administrationโs choices have continued to threaten U.S. interests throughout the region. Our nationโs political and economic interests across the region have also been significantly harmed, while U.S. credibility has been deeply undermined worldwide at a time we need it most, when the world is characterized by a new era of strategic competition.
Critically, this failed policy has not achieved its stated objectivesโit has not made Israelis any safer, it has emboldened extremists while it has been devastating for the Palestinian people, ensuring a vicious cycle of poverty and hopelessness, with all the implications of that cycle, for generations to come. As a group of dedicated Americans in service of our country, we insist that there is another way. In this Statement, we describe the current crisis, explain what we have seen, and address the Biden Administration with policy proposals that we, based on our extensive experience in government, believe must be adopted, including to ensure that catastrophic policy failure like this can never happen again. Finally, but with the deepest devotion, we address the thousands of honorable individuals still in government who are struggling on a daily basis with difficult moral and personal choices.
The Current Crisis
U.S. policy choices have begotten a disaster. First and foremost is the catastrophic and rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis that the Israeli government has created for the Palestinian people, for whom the missteps of the ink of American bureaucracy has been paid in the blood of innocent men, women, and children. To date, over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority of civilian and humanitarian infrastructure has been destroyed, thousands of innocent people remain missing under the rubble, and millions continue to face a manufactured famine due to Israelโs arbitrary restrictions on food, water, medicine, and other critical humanitarian goods. Yet, rather than hold the Government of Israel responsible for its role in arbitrarily impeding humanitarian assistance, the U.S. has cut off funding to the single largest provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza: UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinians.
Second, we note with further concern and sadness that U.S. policy for many years, but particularly since October 2023, has not only contributed to immense humanitarian harm, but has failed when measured against its own declared intent: to contribute to the peace and safety of all in the Middle East, and particularly that of Israel. Rather than using our immense leverage to establish guardrails that can guide Israel towards a lasting and just peace, we have facilitated its self-destructive actions that have deepened its political quagmire and contributed to its enduring global isolation; there is no regional settlement, no agreement with autocratic regimes, no diplomatic step short of the resolution of the Palestinian right to self-determination that can provide Israel with real security.
Third, U.S. policies in this regard have been deeply damaging not only for U.S relations in the region, but for our global credibility, the credibility of U.S. values, and the credibility of the West โa particularly perilous state of affairs in the context of this era of strategic competition. Not only have we inflicted deep and lasting damage to our relations across the region and destabilized the Middle East, but our policies towards Gaza have led us to double-down on our support to brittle regional autocracies as a hedge against public opinion. Meanwhile, on the global stage, who does not see us as hypocrites when the United States condemns Russian war crimes while unconditionally arming and excusing Israelโs? Who does not now laugh when Secretary Blinken describes the โrules based international orderโ while simultaneously undermining it in favor of Israel?โa tragedy after the decades Americans have spent building that order.
How did it go wrong?
Each of us has had our own experience of the cascading failures of process, leadership, and decision-making that have characterized this Administrationโs intransigent response to this continuing calamity. Taken together, these paint a picture of an overlapping and systemic set of problems in this Administrationโs policy approach, and a series of warnings that have gone unheeded:
In our collective experience, we have seen for years the silencing of concerns about Israelโs human rights record and the failure of the Oslo process and broader U.S. policy. We have seen debate silenced in government; facts distorted; laws sidestepped and wilfully ignored, even violated; and lawyers working overtime to avoid faithfully implementing the law. We have seen America, in a process turned on its head, rush to arm Israel even as civilians are massacred with U.S. arms, and efforts to share intelligence with Israel that have contributed to this catastrophe. We have seen peaceful protests met with rancid accusations of antisemitism and with violence, while an Administration that previously fought for free speech on college campuses stood by as it was silenced. We have seen unconditional U.S. support for Israeli military operations in Gaza make it impossible to advocate for human rights in the Middle East and lead regional advocates to turn their backs on our diplomats. We have seen a U.S. Government that dehumanizes both Palestinians and Jews, making the former victims of its weapons and the latter scapegoats for its war machine. We have seen an Administration that is willing to lie to Congress, and a Congress that punishes the truth.
Both our individual and common experiences demonstrate an Administration that has prioritized politics over just and fair policymaking; profit over national security; falsehoods over facts; directives over debate; ideology over experience, and special interest over the equal enforcement of the law. The impact of these injustices has resulted in tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives taken, reflecting a clear picture to the world of whose lives matter, and whose lives simply do not to United States policy makers. As members of the United States Government, each of us witnessed this abrogation of American values, leading us to resign.
What is to be done?
May we all have the moral courage to speak and push for a better world, for a better America.
Our message to our former colleagues
Your voice matters. We write to you with hope that you will use your positions to amplify calls for peace and hold your respective institution accountable to the violence unfolding in Palestine. We thank those of you who are working day in and day out to press for just and equitable policies that protect all lives. We recognize the systemic obstacles you face, both as you perform your work, and as you consider leaving it. We particularly embrace those of you representing Americaโs diversity who feel that your voices have been disempowered, ignored, and tokenized. We are with you, and we know that a better way is possible, but only when we are all brave enough to challenge institutions and outdated forces that attempt to silence us.
We encourage you to keep pushing. In our experience, no decision point is too minor to challenge, so while you are in government service, use your voice, write letters to leaders in your agencies, and bring up your disagreements with your team. Speaking out has a snowball effect, inspiring others to use their voice. There is strength in numbers, and we urge you to not be complicit. We encourage you to consult with your Inspectors General, with your legal advisors, with appropriate Members of Congress, and via other protected channels, to question the veracity and/or legality of specific actions or policies. There are resources, and you have advocates, including all of us, who can support you in speaking your truth.
We close with wisdom from Dr. Martin Luther King in his message about the Vietnam War that resonates today: โthe calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak โฆ for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.โ May we all have the moral courage to speak and push for a better world, for a better America.
A FEW, FAR TOO FEW, ADVENTURERS AND HAMAS-LOVERS IN THE ........EAST????
Opinion | An Annihilation Discourse Has Taken Over Israel
Calls for Israel to launch a nuclear attack on Iran by historian Benny Morris and many others, including those on the left, is the continuation of a strategy of vengeance that would destroy everything. We must take to the streets and protest, while we still can
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A Palestinian woman holding the body of her daughter, killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Maghazi refugee camp, in Gaza last month.Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Adam Raz
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Jul 2, 2024
For years, Israeli historian Benny Morris has been warning about Iran going nuclear.
In September 2021, he wrote in Haaretz: "Time is pressing. The moment Israel must decide between launching a preventive strike and coming to terms with a nuclear Iran and living in its shadow is very near."
-
In October 2023, at the beginning of the Israeli maneuvers in Gaza, he wrote: "The timing will never be better [to attack] than it is now," and it's "the only way remaining."
And now he has stated that if Israel can't attack the Iranian nuclear project through conventional means, "then it may not have any option but to resort to its nonconventional capabilities" (Haaretz English, July 1).
In a 2008 article in The New York Times, he proposed an Israeli nuclear attack because "the alternative is letting Tehran have its bomb." At the time, he acknowledged that "in either case, a Middle Eastern nuclear holocaust would be in the cards."
Open gallery view
Observers on the bridge of the USS Mt. McKinley watching a huge cloud mushroom over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands following an atomic test blast, July 1946.Credit: Jack Rice / AP
Morris didn't say how the use of nuclear weapons would eliminate the Iranian project, but since he doesn't relate to such "trivialities," there is no need to deal with his proposal. It's also unclear why he determined that "Israel can expect reprimands from the international media, the ignorant and mindless youngsters on the campuses and assorted world leaders, but it will also enjoy significant understanding if not active support from many in the international community."
Would breaking the most important international taboo, against the use of nuclear weapons โ which hasn't been violated since August 1945 โ only lead to a few complaints against Israel? That's a baseless conclusion.
Would dropping nuclear bombs on Iran and the elimination of the taboo assure Israel's future? Shouldn't one shudder at the suggestion that such weapons be resorted to?
More disturbing than the "strategic" absurdity of nuking Iran is the outlook that has taken hold of many Israelis that from a diplomatic standpoint, "all is lost" โ along with the normalization and legitimization of the annihilation discourse that has taken over a large segment of the public that views itself as left wing. In other words, a moral fissure.
A nuclear Iran is the greatest threat to Israel. Yitzhak Rabin stated that Israel had a window of opportunity to sign peace agreements with its neighbors before the Middle East goes nuclear. There don't appear to be many subjects on which there is a consensus that transcends parties and political movements more than the danger of the nuclearization of the Middle East. Yigal Allon, and Rabin after him, claimed that if there were a real, genuine danger of the "destruction of the Third Temple" (meaning the State of Israel), it would involve the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region. And now Iran has advanced to become a nuclear threshold state on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's watch.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance to Israel of a nuclear Iran. And yet, before deciding to deploy bombs, Israel has the capacity โ albeit a shrinking one โ to influence the international approach in the region. It should play a central role in assembling a coalition with the United States and Arab nations to build a new regional order. Clearly that's not possible under the government of Netanyahu, who recently brought about the cancellation of a meeting between Israel and the United States on the subject after he released a video critical of the Biden administration. (Netanyahu has for years been scuttling nuclear diplomacy efforts against Iran.)
People in the know, such as Ehud Barak, Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman and New Hope-United Right head Gideon Sa'ar, have recently made tough predictions in Haaretz. Last month, Yossi Verter quoted Barak as saying: "In six months to a year, Iran will launch a multifront war of attrition โ Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias that will attack the Golan Heights, the Houthis and maybe a third intifada. It will be a war of attrition until collapse and then annihilation."
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Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Labor primary results in May.Credit: Moti Milrod
That's why Netanyahu has to be removed from office through huge protests that would paralyze the country. It's the only way to perhaps prevent a collision with the iceberg. But Morris and others have thrown up their hands and are adopting a policy of annihilation.
The October 7 massacre has done damage to many people's rationality. When Netanyahu declared that Gaza would be turned to rubble, he received legitimacy for it from the Israeli public. Airstrikes over Gaza in the initial days of the war didn't prompt criticism from most of the left. On the contrary, it's only now that former senior figures such as ex-Mossad director Tamir Pardo have been prepared to state publicly that the bombardments were an act of revenge, plain and simple, which actually only further complicated our situation and, to a great extent, foiled our capacity to achieve what we wanted to do.
U.S. President Joe Biden said similar things at the beginning of the war, recounting in December that Netanyahu had told him: "You carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died."
"Yeah," Biden responded. "That's why all these [international] institutions were set up after World War II to see to it that it didn't happen again." People on the left in Israel also needed the vengeance of annihilation that Netanyahu announced and which harmed the interests of those seeking peace in the region. Morris' suggestion that the doomsday weapon be used is a continuation of a strategy of vengeance that would destroy everything.
"Annihilation" has been made legitimate in the Israeli discourse. It's also evidence of Israel's moral decline. It should be rejected. People need to take to the streets and protest.
Adam Raz is a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research. His (Hebrew) book "The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of the Endless Conflict and Israel's Moral Degradation," was published in May.
Opinion | An Annihilation Discourse Has Taken Over Israel
Calls for Israel to launch a nuclear attack on Iran by historian Benny Morris and many others, including those on the left, is the continuation of a strategy of vengeance that would destroy everything. We must take to the streets and protest, while we still can
Share in Facebook
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Send in e-mailSend in e-mail
Gift this article
SaveSave article to reading list
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Print article
Open gallery view
A Palestinian woman holding the body of her daughter, killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Maghazi refugee camp, in Gaza last month.Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Adam Raz
Get email notification for articles from Adam RazFollow
Jul 2, 2024
For years, Israeli historian Benny Morris has been warning about Iran going nuclear.
In September 2021, he wrote in Haaretz: "Time is pressing. The moment Israel must decide between launching a preventive strike and coming to terms with a nuclear Iran and living in its shadow is very near."
-
In October 2023, at the beginning of the Israeli maneuvers in Gaza, he wrote: "The timing will never be better [to attack] than it is now," and it's "the only way remaining."
And now he has stated that if Israel can't attack the Iranian nuclear project through conventional means, "then it may not have any option but to resort to its nonconventional capabilities" (Haaretz English, July 1).
In a 2008 article in The New York Times, he proposed an Israeli nuclear attack because "the alternative is letting Tehran have its bomb." At the time, he acknowledged that "in either case, a Middle Eastern nuclear holocaust would be in the cards."
Open gallery view
Observers on the bridge of the USS Mt. McKinley watching a huge cloud mushroom over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands following an atomic test blast, July 1946.Credit: Jack Rice / AP
Morris didn't say how the use of nuclear weapons would eliminate the Iranian project, but since he doesn't relate to such "trivialities," there is no need to deal with his proposal. It's also unclear why he determined that "Israel can expect reprimands from the international media, the ignorant and mindless youngsters on the campuses and assorted world leaders, but it will also enjoy significant understanding if not active support from many in the international community."
Would breaking the most important international taboo, against the use of nuclear weapons โ which hasn't been violated since August 1945 โ only lead to a few complaints against Israel? That's a baseless conclusion.
- A disturbing new book about Netanyahu's relationship with Hamas
- It wasn't the Gaza disengagement but Netanyahu's policies that led to disaster
- A brief history of the Netanyahu-Hamas alliance
Would dropping nuclear bombs on Iran and the elimination of the taboo assure Israel's future? Shouldn't one shudder at the suggestion that such weapons be resorted to?
More disturbing than the "strategic" absurdity of nuking Iran is the outlook that has taken hold of many Israelis that from a diplomatic standpoint, "all is lost" โ along with the normalization and legitimization of the annihilation discourse that has taken over a large segment of the public that views itself as left wing. In other words, a moral fissure.
A nuclear Iran is the greatest threat to Israel. Yitzhak Rabin stated that Israel had a window of opportunity to sign peace agreements with its neighbors before the Middle East goes nuclear. There don't appear to be many subjects on which there is a consensus that transcends parties and political movements more than the danger of the nuclearization of the Middle East. Yigal Allon, and Rabin after him, claimed that if there were a real, genuine danger of the "destruction of the Third Temple" (meaning the State of Israel), it would involve the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region. And now Iran has advanced to become a nuclear threshold state on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's watch.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance to Israel of a nuclear Iran. And yet, before deciding to deploy bombs, Israel has the capacity โ albeit a shrinking one โ to influence the international approach in the region. It should play a central role in assembling a coalition with the United States and Arab nations to build a new regional order. Clearly that's not possible under the government of Netanyahu, who recently brought about the cancellation of a meeting between Israel and the United States on the subject after he released a video critical of the Biden administration. (Netanyahu has for years been scuttling nuclear diplomacy efforts against Iran.)
People in the know, such as Ehud Barak, Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman and New Hope-United Right head Gideon Sa'ar, have recently made tough predictions in Haaretz. Last month, Yossi Verter quoted Barak as saying: "In six months to a year, Iran will launch a multifront war of attrition โ Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias that will attack the Golan Heights, the Houthis and maybe a third intifada. It will be a war of attrition until collapse and then annihilation."
Open gallery view
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Labor primary results in May.Credit: Moti Milrod
That's why Netanyahu has to be removed from office through huge protests that would paralyze the country. It's the only way to perhaps prevent a collision with the iceberg. But Morris and others have thrown up their hands and are adopting a policy of annihilation.
The October 7 massacre has done damage to many people's rationality. When Netanyahu declared that Gaza would be turned to rubble, he received legitimacy for it from the Israeli public. Airstrikes over Gaza in the initial days of the war didn't prompt criticism from most of the left. On the contrary, it's only now that former senior figures such as ex-Mossad director Tamir Pardo have been prepared to state publicly that the bombardments were an act of revenge, plain and simple, which actually only further complicated our situation and, to a great extent, foiled our capacity to achieve what we wanted to do.
U.S. President Joe Biden said similar things at the beginning of the war, recounting in December that Netanyahu had told him: "You carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died."
"Yeah," Biden responded. "That's why all these [international] institutions were set up after World War II to see to it that it didn't happen again." People on the left in Israel also needed the vengeance of annihilation that Netanyahu announced and which harmed the interests of those seeking peace in the region. Morris' suggestion that the doomsday weapon be used is a continuation of a strategy of vengeance that would destroy everything.
"Annihilation" has been made legitimate in the Israeli discourse. It's also evidence of Israel's moral decline. It should be rejected. People need to take to the streets and protest.
Adam Raz is a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research. His (Hebrew) book "The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of the Endless Conflict and Israel's Moral Degradation," was published in May.
It's about fucking time...they achieved nothing with their malarkey...x.com
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NEW Toronto Judge orders pro-Palestinian encampment at U of T to leave by 6 pm Wednesday. Injunction gives police authority to remove and arrest.
